chicating

When the country circles the drain, could I be what's new?

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 00:06:35 GMT

My last biggest publication was in the wake of the Great Recession, and I have submitted to that Big Mystery Magazine...don't know, between every six months and every year and a half. Never got a ton of love back, but they like my baby-shower caper thing? Maybe?(Women editors are essential for my Southwestern faux Lippman side.)

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Submitted a story to another contest...

Mon, 29 Jan 2024 21:39:27 GMT

Sometimes I think I'll end up like a crazy witchy lady, with crazy person hair printing out pages and handing them out in parking lots just to feel read. But for now, I'm a sucker when they wave a prize in my face.

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Picked out some presents at the bookstore...

Mon, 08 Jan 2024 20:49:40 GMT

a comic novel I picked for the title, Ms. Demeanor. (As a reader, I am a sucker for a wacky title, maybe because I find titling my own stuff so difficult.)

The latest memoir about writing school from Stephanie Land. I'm kind of jealous of her for getting to Transcend Circumstances and all that jazz, although not because she's not good at what she does. Just wish my education could have been life-changing too.(Well, I guess I got a couple new ways of saying "I'm probably screwed," and a few different analyses of how it's not my fault that help a lot less now than when I was on fire learning about them.Not exactly the metamorphosis the brainy ugly duckling hopes for most!) And, dag, I'm fifty and still not a swan. Guess that's not going to happen either, huh? probably I'm just a factory-second duck. Quack!

Maybe I'll find some reason why I shouldn't be jealous.
Here's one that made me feel like "What year is this?"--going to my neighborhood Barnes and Noble picking up Jennifer Weiner's latest.

James McBride is trying to make literary/suspense a thing...if he could, it would only be good for a writer like me.(although he has the black experience to work from in ways that I wouldn't, obvs.)
Ironically, my first submission of 2024 went out yesterday, on a fairy-tale theme, but sort of a modern Little Mermaid. Not sure if I'm gonna press that point as hard as I did last year since it didn't lead me to anything, and since I'm no longer a kid trying not to wet her pants, little treats at the end of the end of the week/month aren't that motivating, in and of themselves. What I want to feel like is an artist showcasing her talents. Not a hoople crossing state lines to buy fricking lottery tickets(if it'll help, universe, my guidance counselor is probably dead. I can skip telling her to suck it now.)

I am an apostate to the American Church of Put Yourself Out There(or else the synod hasn't accepted my existence yet. Because I have tried on multiple levels, and, well, I end up back here. A lot.) I might go off about that a little more, but my luck is that my going full Festivus would be the one thing I ever did that the world paid attention to, so instead of UnDiscovered Talent On The Margins I'd get to be Bitter Old Crank Not that there's no overlap.

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Should I Keep Submitting?

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 21:01:19 GMT

Got another piece of mail about another big writing prize, but if I think it's attractive scads of other people do too. Haven't actually won a prize since junior college. I've been trying cause "You never know!" and it makes me feel like a real writer, sometimes, and I do have the money and stuff. But maybe I do know.
Treating submitting like my phone work hasn't helped because different markets want different things.

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I knew It Wasn't Gonna Be This Easy...

Sat, 29 Apr 2023 00:05:46 GMT

And I'm not sure the thing I wrote for this flash fiction contest was my most confident work, but still hurts a little, even with the new, happy-talk rejection slips that tell us how great we are(Does this truly help anyone? Except that poor girl on "The Middle" that everything made happy for no reason? Sue Heck, that's her name...)
Went against previous habit and started rewriting new "Riding Hood" piece, just to feel in my heart there aren't only two things I can do--If I love it, I may submit somewhere else. If I don't microfiction is small enough to bury.

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My coronavirus stories...

Sun, 26 Feb 2023 17:48:41 GMT

are in the queue for the contest that I entered! (I'm a bit behind on the count for my #resolution, but life has kicked my butt for a little bit, and this is an important and attention-getting choice, if I got it.

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